This was one of the soundtracks to the summer of ’07 for me. A lot of decent stuff came out that spring and summer and this was one of the albums I listened to. Honestly, though, it’s a good release, I don’t think it’s anyting special.

These are covers of primarily 1960s/1970s blues rock (though a Temptations cover manages to sneak in) and therein lies the problem — I’m not a fan of those decades. I’m certainly not a fan of the 60s at all, though the 70s did start to kick things up a notch in that decade’s later years. Out of all the bands who are being covered, there are only four I have a passing interest in: Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, and UFO. Even then, I wouldn’t really call myself a “fan” of those bands. I’ve committed rock blasphemy, I know.

So this album isn’t a home run (cover albums usually aren’t) but there are a few songs that held my interest. “Space Truckin'” is a great cover of the Deep Purple classic and Tesla does an amazing version of UFO’s “Rock Bottom”.

The packaging for this album includs a spot for you to place to the CD of Real to Reel, Volume 2, which was initially only available by buying tickets to one of their summer concerts. It was later released commercially.

Summer. It’s that time of year where the so-called “eighties” acts release an album to get some hype going their summer tours. Usually, a greatest hits or live album will do the job so that these bands can promote & sell *something* while on the road, but cover albums are always another standby for bands that don’t feel like writing new songs. Covers albums in general are nothing to get excited about. As I said, they’re either done by a band that doesn’t want to sit down and write original material OR they’re released to fill time while the public awaits original material.

Luckily, Poison delivers with the same good time fun that their original works are known for. Sure, Bret Michael’s voice has gotten a little rougher with time, but so do calluses. That’s life. Even at his vocal peak, Bret was never going to out sing Rob Halford or Jeff Scott Soto, and he does a serviceable job here.

Poison seems quite at home covering “Little Willy” and Bowie’s “Suffragette City”, the first two tracks that get the album off to a great start. I was also pleasantly surprised to see them cover (and do a good job of covering) Alice Cooper’s “I Never Cry”. Bret’s twang has never been more present than on that song. Other top picks include a rockin’ version of “I Need To Know”, “Can’t You See”, “Rock ‘N Roll All Night” (a song I’ve long since only had a mp3 version of), and of course one of their biggest hits… “Your Momma Don’t Dance”.

For all the fun this album brings (it’s a great summertime album to go crusin’ to) I do have a few gripes here. Tracks 9-13 were all previously released songs. I would have much preferred Poison to have picked and recorded some new covers. “‘Rock ‘N Roll All Night” is from 1987’s Less Than Zero movie soundtrack, “‘Squeeze Box”’ comes from the band’s last studio album 2001’s Hollyweird, “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” was released in 2006 as a 1986 demo track with the Poison album reissues, “Your Momma Don’t Dance” was a huge hit for the band from Open Up and Say… Ahhh and “We’re An American Band” comes from last year’s 20th Anniversary greatest hits collection.

“Your Momma Don’t Dance” easily stands out on this album as the best track. It’s everything hair metal was in the 80s, slick and polished and in your face. The newer covers have a more raw and punchy sound, which while it works for some tracks (“Suffragette City”, “I Never Cry”, “I Need To Know”), it feels out of place on 80s pop hits like “What I Like About You” and certainly on The Cars’ “Just What I Needed”.

If you picked up the Wal-Mart version of the album, it included a bonus track featuring a cover of Mr. JT’s “Sexy Back”, which is actually pretty entertaining and fairly heavy sounding (well, heavy for Poison covering a Timberlake song).